In the opening sequence of Josef Kubota Wladyka’s “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) tells her husband and dance partner, Luis (Alejandro Edda), that he’s pigeon-toed.
She’s watching a video of their dance routine before they head to a competition, pointing out every single thing that Luis is doing wrong. But there’s no malice in the criticism – this is clearly a ritual, a way for Haru to calm her nerves. While she stares intently at the video, he serves her dinner, looking at her lovingly as she rips him to shreds.
It’s an effective scene, not just because Wladyka deftly sets up their dynamic, but also for how he sets up the iridescent quality of Luis’ love for Haru ahead of the film’s inciting incident – his sudden death during the very competition they’re prepping for. But, that pigeon-toed comment will come back to haunt the film – and not in the way you might expect.
“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty” is an odd, delightful little duck of a movie about grief and the healing power of movement, written by Wladyka and co-writer Nicholas Huynh – and it’s mostly successful. The film doesn’t always quite nail the balance between its visual ambitions and its story. But when it does, it soars like the lift at the end of “Dirty Dancing.”
After Luis’ sudden death, Haru can’t escape him – literally. Luis often manifests for Haru as a giant black bird, Or, more accurately, he manifests as himself wearing a mascot bird costume, sometimes with the head on and sometimes with it off. That bird is the albatross hanging around Haru’s neck. Nine months after Luis’ death, she still doesn’t want to leave the house, even refusing to attend the birthday party her sister, Yuki (Yoh Yoshida) and cousin Hiromi (Yukiko Ehara, also known as You) are throwing for her. But the combined power of Yuki and Hiromi can’t be denied, and they eventually coax Haru out of her shell to attend a dance class with them – where she promptly develops a crush on the new instructor, Fedir (Alberto Guerra).
The bird is by far the biggest swing in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” but Wladyka is clearly not afraid to make a strange stylistic choice. Not all of these choices fail to connect – the sequence where Luis’ dies is framed as a soaring dance through the air, Haru and Luis suspended above the dance floor during their competition before he slowly falls out of the spotlight towards the ground. But while this and other moments feel enmeshed with a particular sort of romantic musicality, the bird doesn’t mesh quite as well – it feels out of step with the rest of the film’s language.
Most of that language revolves around dancing. The first time we see Haru, she’s situated in front of a “Dirty Dancing” poster, and it’s clear the iconic ‘80s movie is a huge influence. Wladyka is incredibly focused on movement – the way Haru’s hips sashay in her velour sweatpants as she putters around the house, the way the bodies at the dance competition move as one. But, unlike “Dirty Dancing,” “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty” is happy to revel in the little imperfections. Haru isn’t a professional, but the slightly inelegant quality of her movement is endlessly endearing.
When Haru starts to fall for Fedir, the fantasy expands. And to its credit, “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” is heavily invested in the romantic fantasies of women in their 40s. When a man runs into Haru while she and Fedir are on a date and refuses to apologize, we get a full on musical sequence as Fedir dance-fights with the perpetrators a la “West Side Story” and “Be My Baby” plays in the background.
These fantasies are ultimately broken by the harsh sting of reality – as they always are. And some of the script’s more formulaic aspects can feel a bit old hat, especially when compared with some of its more expressionistic qualities. But, at its best, “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty” follows the ups and downs of grief with a hopeful hand, and is bolstered by a stellar group of actresses – particularly, the wonderful Kikuchi.
As Haru, Kikuchi wears her emotions on her sleeve, delivering a performance that’s underpinned by such spunk and joy it’s difficult not to smile. Grief is so often pinned down to one emotion that we forget how many levels exist inside that word. Kikuchi finds them all, whether it be anger, laziness, fondness, or even abject horniness (“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty” is very sexy, and at one point Haru’s confusion over her grief and new feelings manifests in a dream where Fedir and Luis kiss. She promptly faints).
As Yuki and Hiromi, Yoshida and You feel like the angel and the devil on her shoulder – but with the understanding that the devil can be just as necessary as the angel sometimes. During a key conversation, Hiromi reminds Haru that “messy can be good sometimes.” And that feels a good encapsulation of “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty” as a whole – messy, but good.
